Which, of course, is exactly what I did. Of all my old friends and cronies, Melchizedek Hobbs was the one to whom I had been closest. Jeremiah Jones had written me a few times from Chicago, where he was with some firm of chemists, and I gathered that Sydney Smythe was enjoying the spoils of aristocracy as cashier of his father's bank, but I was not anxious to see Sydney. The others had scattered or married and settled down, and I doubted that they would have much in common with footloose Jamie Abercrombie, who had too much money for his own good and had just inherited another slice that he hadn't earned.
I had dinner and a pipe and then set out along the well-remembered, maple shaded lane of Spring Street, past the old Sutherland place at the corner of Eagle, where a scrawny hedge had replaced the old white picket fence; over the limestone bridge across the Grooterkill, built by one of the Irish stonecutters who had been brought over to work on the Erie Canal; past the Jones house with its neat lawn and big red barn. There was someone on the porch, but I didn't stop. I didn't cotton much to Abigail, and there would be plenty of time in daylight to talk to Mrs. Jones.
Melchizedek Hobbs lived almost at the end of Spring Street, in a huge, rambling clapboard house that hadn't been painted since before Gettysburg. The grass, as usual, was rank on the lawn, but the flower-beds that lined the flagstone walk were pictures of tender care, and the big new greenhouse in the backyard shone like silver in the moonlight.
There was a light out there, so I went through the side yard and around the house. There was a high wire fence across the yard, with an iron gate, and the gate was padlocked. I rattled it and hooted. The light went out in the greenhouse, and a moment later I saw the gaunt, scarecrow figure of Melchizedek Hobbs stalking toward me.
He knew me at once, in spite of my handsome, flowing moustache and weather-beaten complexion, and after fifteen years. Nor had he changed much himself. He was a bit thinner and he had taken to a pretty obvious toupee. His nose seemed longer and sharper, and a little redder, and his clothes were a little shabbier than I remembered them. He was wearing a butterfly-wing bow-tie instead of the magnificent mauve cravats that I remembered, and it was on crooked.
We went around to the front porch and sat in the summer moonlight, with the mingled perfume of hundreds of flowers wafted up to us from his garden, and the moist, rich smell of the Mohawk in the days before factory wastes and oil tankers turned it into an open sewer. We talked about old times, and about my adventures in far lands, and the exploits of others among his favorite pupils, but I could see that he was uneasy. So, very gradually, I turned the conversation to himself and his flowers. I told him of my experiences in finding some of the plants I had sent him, and he went into raptures over the things he had done with them. And then I asked about the Zulu rose.
It was like throwing a blanket over a coop of clamoring ducklings. I knew he was looking at me through the darkness, his long nose quivering with indecision. I knew that he wanted me to leave, or change the subject, but I knew that he would never ask me to do so. It was cruel, perhaps, but I simply sat and waited.
It seemed a long time before I heard him sigh. "Yes, James. Of course. You have been told something in the village. It was Jim Selford, I presume—he would be the one. Well—you have the right to know."
He got to his feet, and to my amazement began to pall off his coat. He dropped it at his feet and proceeded further to haul his shirt-tails out of his high-waisted trousers. Then, with trembling fingers, he struck a match and held it over his head.